Vegetable Research & Innovation

Assessment of 12 Herbicide Treatments on the Crop Tolerance and Yield of Bounty Peas

Peas are an important part of the arable crop rotation allowing a break between traditional cereal crops helping break disease and weed cycles. Weed control in these crops can have a large impact on yield especially when crops are sown in the spring coinciding with the germination of a large number of weed seeds. Control of weeds not only helps maximise yield but it also prevents potential harvest difficulties due to the high moisture content of weeds retaining moisture in the crop and therefore requiring desiccation prior to harvest. Crop quality can also be affected due to water staining on seed peas as well as the difficulty of removing some weed seeds from the harvested crop, this is especially so for Californian thistle (Cirsium arvense) infestations in processed pea crops. The present trial was designed to evaluate the effect of 12 herbicide treatments on the yield of both processing and seed peas.